Solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement begins with a critical education

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Emily Eberly/Oxfam

Recommendations from Oxfam staff to support your journey toward racial awareness.

Have you been following or participating in the Black Lives Matter protests in all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and around the world following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery?

Racism is a political, economic, and social system on which our nation was built and still persists today. We believe in the power of people to make systemic changes and will continue to uphold justice for Black people by advocating against racist and abusive policies and practices. Standing in solidarity is about more than just showing up. It requires critical thinking to dismantle dominant and long-accepted ways of thinking. Let’s start by educating ourselves.

We’ve compiled a non-exhaustive list of books, podcasts, and other media by scholars and activists to help us learn more about systemic racism, the structures of white supremacy, and what action they believe is needed right now.

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Black Lives Matter protest in front of the White House on June 1. Photo: Becky Davis/Oxfam

Books

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

White Rage, by Carol Anderson

Whiteness as Property, by Cheryl I. Harris

Hood Feminism, by Mikki Kendall

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

How to be an Anti-racist and Anti-racist Baby, by Ibram X. Kendi

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

Freedom Dreams and Race Rebels, by Robin D. G. Kelley

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

Native Son, by Richard Wright

Women, Race, & Class, by Angela Davis

Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde

The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein

Golden Gulag, by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Indigenous People’s History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

If you plan to purchase these books, please buy them from Black-owned bookstores.

Podcasts

1619 (The New York Times)

Still Processing (The New York Times)

Code Switch (NPR)

Africa World Now Project

Yo, Is This Racist? (EarWolf)

Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw (African American Policy Forum)

Throughline (NPR)

The Intercepted (the Intercept)

The Nod (Gimlet)

Pod Save the People with Deray (Crooked Media)

Groundings

Bag Ladiez

Hoodrat to Headwrap

Documentaries

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Amazon Prime)

13th (Netflix)

LA 92 (Netflix)

I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon Prime)

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (Netflix)

Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story (Amazon Prime)

Whose Streets? (Hulu)

The Rape of Recy Taylor

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes

What Matters (Black Lives Matter docu-series)

Want more? Take a deeper dive

Resources for white communities

Communities of color aren’t exempt from perpetuating anti-Black attitudes and behaviors. Here are some resources for non-Black people of color:

Resources for Asian American communities

Resources for South Asian communities

Resources for non-Black Latinx communities

Resource for indigenous communities: Our History is the Future, by Nick Estes

Black Lives Matter.

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